Battambang police have called upon the Interior Ministry’s anti-terrorism department for help arresting the creator of a video that suggests corrupt officials have sold off the province’s most important reservoir.
In a video posted to Facebook last week on the now-deleted page of a user by the name of “Tommy Angkor,” a young man makes the claim of impropriety while standing in front of the Komping Puoy reservoir.
“When I spoke to vendors here at the Komping Puoy reservoir, they told me it had been sold, giving the reason of the granting of a concession for 99 years,” he says to the camera. “After I heard about this reservoir, built by Cambodian people during the Pol Pot regime, I thought, ‘Why are those officials so hungry for money? After this will you have enough?”
Provincial police chief Sar Thet said his officers were preparing evidence to send to the anti-terrorism department, which he hoped would help them locate and arrest the slanderous provocateur. “Because they have technology experts, they should be able to find the man much more easily than us,” he explained.
The anti-terrorism department, which has also recently been employed to investigate a sex scandal involving a senior opposition political figure, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Police became involved in tracking down “Tommy Angkor” after officials at the Battambang department of water resources saw the video on Facebook and requested police intervention.
Khai Soda, acting director of the department, said the claim in the video was not true and had damaged the honor of the department.
“Komping Puoy cannot be granted as a concession because it helps Battambang and also a lot of Banteay Meanchey people,” he said. “If it is controlled by a private investor, how is this going to help people?”
“We want police to arrest him, otherwise he will make exaggerated claims about other government departments if he is free,” he said.
